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Atheist pundit Austin Cline can often be found pontificating about religion on about.com. He has an article around religious experience as a God argument, [1]
his prejudicial dismissal of the argument is tailormade for my new
book, The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief, by Joseph Hinman
(paperback, soon to be e book available on Amazon)
to answer. First I want to clear the way by a knit pick. the phrase "Do
we experience God's existence?" is an awkward and odd phrase. It's
redundant because the only way we could actually experience God as a
reality is if God is real, what we call "existing," thus even though
this is a misuse of the term on his part according to Paul Tillich's
theology [2] to experience God
is to say that God is real and thus the idea that we are experiencing
God's existence is just redundant. If we experience God as a reality
then God must be real or we are not truly experiencing God's reality. We
don't say that we experience the existence of things apart form
experiencing those things. I've experienced losing my parents, I don't
say 'I have experienced the existence of my parent's deaths.'

Be that as it may Cline opens his argument:

According to the Argument from Religious Experience, people have
“religious experiences” — experiences of the supernatural, like heaven
or angels or even a god. Because we believe other experiential claims
people make — like that they went to the store or own a car — then we
should believe these claims as well. It is also argued that when
skeptics apply higher standards for claims based on religious
experiences than they do for claims based on other experiences, they
exhibiting a prejudice against religious claims. This prevents them from
understanding and ultimately believing.

Here we see a totally inadequate understanding of religious experience.
There is no sense here that religious experience is mystical experience
or "peak" experience or that it is even a form of consciousnesses. He
tries to justify the kind of dismissal tactics atheists use to reduce
and mislabel religious experience. He's already demonstrated that he's
mislabeling it. The understanding of super nature such that religious
experience is "experience of the supernatural" is merely the modern
enlightenment misunderstanding of the concept. Super nature is the power
of God to raise human nature to a higher level (of consciousness) thus
"the supernatural" is mystical experience. See my article "the Empirical
Supernatural."[3]

Cline bases his argument on the work of William James:

William James offers a classic version of this argument in his influential Varieties of Religious Experience.
He argues that all normal persons have religious experience and, since
experience is the final arbiter of truth, then God — as the object of
religious experiences — must be accepted as factually true. James
further observes that the religious experiences in question tend to have
a profound effect on the lives of people and even whole societies,
implying that such effects cannot reasonably be attributed to
hallucinations. Instead, it is much more reasonable to believe that a
real God is responsible for religious experiences than to attribute the
profound effects of those experiences to a mere imaginary being.

As profoundly important as James still is in the study of religious
experience, and this argument is good in so far as it goes, there are
better and more updated versions of the argument. Notice he doesn't
take on William Alston, who is one of the major philosophers of religion
of the late twentieth century. Nor does he deal with any of the modern empirical scientific data in favor of religious experience.[4] Cline decides to pick on James as the best example of the argument.

The first problem is in James’ assertion that “all normal people”
have “religious experiences.” It is uncertain what exactly he means by
this, but it is a much easier assertion to make than to support. If he
means experiences of the supernatural — gods, angels, etc. — then he is
wrong. If he means something much more vague, like that everyone has
experienced awe when contemplating the universe, then he might be right
but he isn’t supporting his claim.[5]

I doubt that James said "normal people" I can't find where he did say
it. I notice that Cline doesn't document it. That could be crucial
weather or not he ascribes it to normality. What he actually says is
referenced by Wuthnow in his study (this can be seen in my book) where
he says there is a continuum in experience that all people (I don't
think he says "normal")

As far as the argument itself goes it is perfectly logical. We don't
experience things that are not real. We could actually mistake
experiences of one thing for another, so that must be answered. We might
also have a false experience, that is hallucination or some other trick
of the mind. These things are easily disproved in the case of mystical
experience. The argument I sustain throughout the Trace of Godis designed to answer this argument. The first answer I would give is:

(1) that I go to great lengths in my book to show that we habitually
use a certain criteria for judging the reality of experience. The
studies on religious experience, with the aid of Hood's M scale show us
that religious experience of the mystical kind meets this criteria. Thus
we must on principle accept it as real and trust it, or doubt our own
existences.[6] This arguemnt is
made in a simpler way on my lis of God arguments, no. 8 "The Thomas
Reid argument," or "Argument from epistemic judgement."[7]
The criteria is that we judge experiences real if hey are regular,
consistent, shared (inter-subjective) and enable navigation in the
world. If other forms of coutner causation are eliminated so that we can
be fairly certain that we not expericing falsely logic forces us to
conclude that we are experiencing rightly and there is something there
to be experinced.

(2) the effects of the experience of are real. I go to great lengths to
show (see all of chapter 2) that the outcome of having such experiences
is life life transformation, that is a bold dramatic positive long term
life changing result. I further argue that long term positive changes
consistently are indicative of reality. Pathological states, mental
illness and delusion are degenerative, they bring us down and destroy us
over time. Nothing false builds us up and is vital too our well being
over a long term period. These experiences are transforming over the
long term.

(3) At the end of Chapter 7 I present eight tie breakers. The "tie" is
conceived of as between brain chemicals as the most likely explanation
for the origin of the experience, vs. brain chemistry as merely God's
tool for enabling us to experience his presence. That's a stand off it
could be either option. The tie breakers tell us it makes much more
sense to accept the latter as the most likely possibility.

(4) I also rule out placebo effects in chapter 7. placebo requires that
one expect the desired result, but in that chapter I show several ways
in which religious experience does not conform to expected norms but
often surprises such that it is often unsought, unexpected, a conversion
experience, or also it can contradicts cherished doctrines.[8]
For some of the studies as much as half the sample received their
experiences in childhood. I show that children are not hung up on
doctrines so they are not expecting experiences to conform to doctrines.
Yet they have these uniform experiences that indicates the experiences
are really of an objective reality.[9]

Cline sticks with his sustained attack against James.In any case his
arguments are easy to answer if one knows Jame's works. My
understanding of James is only passing fair. In my book I bring together
a much larger body of empirical work which has been done over the last
50 years, armed with this knoweldge it is easy to pick off Cline's
bromides. Cline refuses to think past cultural influence and makes the
argument that difference in religious traditions disprove the idea of
one reality behind them all. Here's he's trying to play the old atheist
divide and conquer game:

The second problem is in the variety of religious experiences: if
there is just one God, why is there such wide variety in the reports of
religious experiences? Indeed, they are mutually incompatible. They
can’t all be true, so at least some must be false. How do we
differentiate? What reasons can the religious believer give to accept
her reports over the reports made by others?

I would argue that the studies on Hood's mysticism scale ("M scale") prove that mystical experience around the world is
universally experienced in the same way. They are not conditioned by
doctrines, even though they are explained by doctrines and culture that
makes them seem different. When the explanation is ignored and the
experiences themselves are compared they are the same. That means they
have a good reason to assume they are expericing something real,
something objectively there (since it's not just a matter of culture of
psychology). A more detailed version documented by Hood's M scale studies can be found on The Religious a priori.[10]

Cline asserts that there is no criteria that enables us to determine
false from true experiences. While I agree that there is no criteria
that proves the difference, I have already demonstrated that he's wrong
in his assertion:

There are no independent criteria we can use to separate the
genuine experiences from false or flawed experiences — not only in the
reports of others, but in ourselves. The only criteria which might exist
rely upon the validity of some religious system. For example, some
argue that a religious experience which does not agree with the Bible is
flawed or false — but since this ultimately assumes the truth of what
is supposed to be proven, such criteria are unacceptable.

There is a criteria that we habitually use to assert the reality of
experience, we go by that criteria every time: regular, consistent,
sheared, navigational. We don't think about it. We dont say to ourselves
"I'm going to use that criteria" we just do it. If an experience is
anomalous, it's not regular or consistent we assume it's bogus. If we
experience things they same way all the time we assume it's normal and
its alright. It's only the stuff that stands out as rare or one of a
kind that bothers us. If we want confirmation of our view we seek it in
others, "is it hot in here to you?" "Did you see that?" If
it works we can live by it we assume it's true. Thus we don't stand on
the freeway deliberating about Cartesian doubt we get out of the way of
oncoming traffic. The studies on religious experience that are discussed
in the Trace of God demonstrate that religious experiences fit that
criteria thus we should trust them as indicative of reality.[11]

From there Cline tries to disparage the link between the effects of the experience and an assumption of its truth aptness:

The third problem is in the idea that the profound effects these
experiences have is any indicator of the truth. We can grant that people
have some sort of experience and we can certainly grant that the
experiences have a profound effect; but does this mean we must accept
the reported content of these experiences — that they were of a
supernatural nature? No.

Again he raises the false specter of the hijack version of the
supernatural. Real supernatural--the original meaning of the
term--referred to mystical experience not to some ookie spookie reality
zone that houses all manor of stings that go "bump" in the night.
Mystical experience is proved to be real. It is a real phenomena that
people have such experiences and those experiences tend to have a
certain effect upon the lives of those who have them. The atheists try
to turn that phrase "SN" into some kind of badge of dishonor, the
fantasy world one dare not believe in. In resorting to that ploy he is
dogging the real issue that he himself raised, do these effects of
having had such experiences indicate the truth of the object of
experience? He says "no" based upon the proviso that it is indicative of
the forbidden realm. But if we ask the question in terms of reality and
the object of the experience we must say yes.

First of all atheists are inconsistent in that they will argue that the
advantage of having an experience is not indicative of truth but then
they turn around and affirm this very idea of scinece. Every time I ask
atheists how do you know science is true? They always say "because it
works, you are using a computer aren't you? Science produced that
computer because it works." All hail science! In any case, so saying the
affirm the principle that working is related to being true. This is one
of my tie breakers in chapter 7. Then Cline dazzels us with more of his
fallacious reasoning: "Real experiences that have a profound impact on a
person can have
completely natural sources without any divine connections."

That just illustrate the atheist misunderstanding of the true concept of
SN and the way they use it as a ploy to ward off belief in God by
lumping it into the forbidden zone of belief. They make still absurd
dichotomy anything natural must lack God and could be the product of
evolution. That is an assumption not in evidence. A Gambler getting 100
royal flushes in a row as random chance would be naturalistic but it
would not be natural, it would be the greatest of flukes. God created
the natural realm and he works in all the time. The assumption atheists
make that if it's naturalistic then God can't be in it is absurd. That's
why we need the tie breakers, because the naturalistic element of brain
chemistry could go either way. It could be indicative of a Godless
origin or it could be God's tool in giving us a sense of his presence.

Yet Cline goes further he makes a foolish assertion that: "Mystical
experiences can be reproduced in anyone, both with chemical substances
and mechanical equipment. With this being the case, what reason is there
to think that other reports actually stem from a supernatural, rather
than a natural, cause?" Well if you really want to know:

(1) buy my book and read the end of chapter 7 for the eight tie brakers
and you have eight different reasons to assume the answer to that.

(2) The assertion that religious experiences can be reproduced is not
proved. There are tons of claims to that effect, but in the book I point
out (ala Philosopher John Hick) that those researchers do not have a
standard criteria for control in understanding what constitutes
religious experience. They do not use the M scale or any other valid
scale to determine this. [12] I analyze the Borg study which is hostile to religion and show that their standard is totally unsuited.[13]
Because they do not use such criteria they cannot prove that ever
produce religious experience. They merely take the presence of cultural
icons of religion as indicative of religious experience but there's no
sense of consciousness. As I have said dichotomizing bewteen natural and
SN is not a valid means of determining God's handiwork since God can
work int he natural as easily as he can in the SN. Rather it is God's
power to life us up to a higher state of consciousness that is Super
nature. The basic state of such consciousness is a matter of fact,
regardless of proof about it's origin.

Cline goes on dictonomizing:

If at least some of the alleged religious
experiences are wholly natural, how do we separate them from the “truly”
supernatural ones? Even if an experience changes the course of a
society, that does not testify that the experiences had supernatural
origins. At most, it might point to the persuasiveness of the believers
or the appeal of the claims.

As I said already we do that by buying my book and reading the end of
chapter 7 where I list the tie breakers. Then at the end of the article
he takes on Swinebrune's argument:

Some, like Richard Swineburne, argue that the degree to which it
seems to a person that something has happened should translate into the
probability that something has happened. It is true that when people say
that it seems to them that a chair is in a room that, therefore, we
tend to accept that a chair is in the room. It is not true, however,
that every time someone genuinely and seriously believes something, we
also accept that whatever they believe is probably true.
We only accept this when it comes to more mundane things which we
all have experiences of. When someone says that it seems to them very
strongly that an elf is in the room, we do not accept that there is
probably an elf in the room, do we?

I don't argue Swineburne's argument. I've only read it one time. So I
wont try to defined it here except to say that the condition of the
argument seems to be the extent to which is seem that the person has
actually experinced something. We are talking about warrant. If there is
a warrant to believe this then there is no logical reason to discount
it on face value. That doesn't mean one can't come up with an argument,
it does mean the burden of proof is on the sketpic to show that the
warrant is invalid and that there is good reason to doubt. Playing
dichotomy game and hinting that "O no this leads to the forbidden zone
of he SN" is not going to cut it. That is an ideological assumptino that
some aspect aspect of reality must be doubted because it is the aspect
that it seems to be and and brings too close to God so we must doubt it.

At this point Cline leaves us with the most dubious argument of tall,
that failure to obtain mystical experience is a reason to doubt it's
validity.

Even if we accept Swineburne’s
argument, we must also accept that when people try to have an experience
of a god and fail, that this is good reason to believe that a god
probably does not exist. After all, it would be prejudiced to
dismiss the experiences of nonbelievers but privilege the experiences of
those who already believe.

This argument is open to immediate reversal becasue then one must accept
results as indicative of truth. If this is the case then why don't
successes reflect that reality of God? The fact that it works has to be
understood as truth indicative. Moreover, if results are indicative the
fact that the experience is transformative and that being such it
fulfills the basic function religion promises to fill in the first
place, offers a rational warrant for belief that it is true. I suspect
that Cline based his argument upon the arrangements I make because his
contains all the basic elements of mine but he didn't bother study how I
defend them. Or that may be my own arrogance and conciet.

Either way the Trace of God, my book, arms the chruch with a
power body of scientific data that backs up this and all other
experience based arguments. This work injects fiber into the content of
experience arguments and no Christian ever need fear the atheists jibes
about no facts, no God, atheism has scinece. Atheists have not touched
these arguments in five years of battle on CARM. This book serves as a
compindium that will enable anyone to defend experience arguments
against all commers.

Sources

[2]
Tillich famously argued that we can' use the term "existence" in
relation to God becuase exist is what contingent things do. God is being
itself and thus is above the level of mere "existing." see Shaking of
the Foundations, by Paul Tillich.

[4] Willam Alston,Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience, Ithaca, NY:Cornell University Press, 1993, no page indicated. see also The Trace of God, the entire book is about this huge body of data that has heretofore been neglected by both atheists and theists.

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